Impartido por:

杨柏灿

教授，博士生导师

Transcripción

In last class I have introduced the concept of Chinese herbs From this class on in the following three sessions we are going to discuss the relationship between Chinese medicine and culture We will focus on the cultural attributes of Chinese herbs Maybe you have doubts on why I'm going to focus on that As we mentioned just now Chinese herbs are not limited to those originated from China Why the same product can be produced in China but also in other countries The reason why it is called Chinese herbs when using it in China is that there is a theoretical system behind the usage While it can not be called Chinese herbs in other countries because there is no such a theoretical system Very naturally, a question may arise Why this theoretical system came into being in China only The answer involves the social and the cultural foundations So it's very necessary to discuss the cutural attributes of Chinese herbs from social and cultural perspectives Basically in our long history we always consider Chinese medicine as an extremely important component of Chinese civilization over the past 5,000 years The traditional Chinese medicine itself is a part of Chinese culture It can be safely said that Chinese medicine originated developed and boomed along with Chinese culture Without Chinese culture there is no Chinese medicine In other words without Chinese medicine the traditional culture is incomplete I will introduce our culture, which is an immense issue Chinese medicine is a part of Chinese culture which consists of other divisions of culture For example philosophy literature art diet and Chinese characters My point of this lecture is the cultural blend of Chinese medicine and other parts of culture How the Chinese medicine plays its role among other parts of culture and how other parts of culture are revealed in Chinese medicine That is what I'm going to introduce to you today Let's take a very simple example The Chinese character YAO (meaning: Chinese medicine) tells us that in the original complex form of this word ther is a "サ" (meaning: grass) in the upper part of the chinese character and a 乐 (樂: happiness) in the lower part in the Shuo Wen Jie Zi (Origin and Explanations of Chinese Characters) explains that the word "Yao"("藥: Chinese medicine） came from grass and pronounced simlilar to "yue"("樂": happiness) What does that mean "yao" (藥: Chinese medicine）is a kind of grass to cure the disease As a matter of fact, from this explanation we gained a lot information First, its structure Second, the meaning of the word Third, the main component of the "Yao" (藥: Chinese medicine） which is related to plants Chinese medicine came from grass but what kind of grass the grass that can cure your diseases and regain you happiness That's how the word"(藥)came into being Therefore no matter from the angle of the structure or from its meaning the character "Yao" ("藥") reveals how Chinese characters and Chinese medicine are intermingled. That's wonderful The Shuo Wen Jie Zi (Origin and Explanations of Chinese Characters) sufficiently illustrated the character "Yao" in details Apart from that Many other herbs have their respective names These names have very close relationship with Chinese characters Given another chance, I will give a lecture specifically on that topic Let me give you one more example Everybody knows that in our Chinese medicine there is one herb called "Bai Zhi”(白芷) What is the meaning of "zhi"("芷") It is the root of vanilla Merely from the literal meaning of this character, without knowing about the function of the medcine we can immediatly infer through the name of the medicine the characteristics of it It must be fragrant The fragrant herb can prevent some infectious disease That's what we've got from the name of a Chinese herb I would like to give you a more vivid example to explain the relationship between Chinese medicine and Chinese characters which is "Jia Gu Wen"( inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells）and "Long Gu"(Dragon bones) Now we all konw that "Jia Gu Wen" is one of the origins of Chinese Characters Then did you every think about that why we call it "Jia Gu Wen" ( inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells) The shells are also a kind of Chinese medicine The shells, in fact, come from the shells on the back or in the abdomen of tortoises It is known to all that tortoises have a long life And what are the bones They are bones from some large animals In traditional Chinese medicine, we call them "Long Gu" (Dragon bones) Let me tell you a story in 1899 the end of the Qing Dynasty an official whose position equals to the highest officer of today's Ministry of Education I'm not sure whether he can be called minister of education was named Wang Yirong He was more an archaeologist than an official He was an expert of anchient characters and inscriptions on ancient bronzes and stone tablets One time, he was ill Malaria He went o see the doctor, bought some Chinese herbs and then decocted these herbs When he was decocting, he accidently found that on the surface of one Chinese medicine called "Long Gu" (Dragon bones) There are some strange instriptions on the shells As a scholar of inscriptions, and maybe by intuition He immediately realized that these inscriptions are some meaningful symbols So he studied them carefully Then he had a stronger feeling that these symbols might relate to some ancient Chinese charaters He sent his servants to pay a premium to buy as many "Long Gu" in the market as he could He even asked his friends to buy almost all the "Long Gu" in Bei Jing Finally he collected more than 1,500 pieces After careful study he gradually recongnized some characters His study is considered as the origin of the study on "Jia Gu Wen" ( inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells） In infact, before his study some others had already done some study on that But Wang Yirong was the first man to do the study academically and systematically So Wang Yirong now is respected as the Father of Jia Gu Wen I have no idea how many domestic scholars can read Jia Gu Wen As far as I'm concerned, at least there was another person, Guo Moruo who did read Jia Gu Wen Now let's take a look at those more than 5,000 shells of tortoises or animals on which inscripted Jia Gu Wen From this very common Chinese medicine we found the origin of Chinese Character, Jia Gu Wen Long Gu, shells of tortoise and animals, is in fact the carrier of Jia Gu Wen What is Long Gu in traditional Chinese medicine Let me give you a rough explanation As mentoned above Long Gu was the fossils of some ancient large mammals From this origin we can imagine some characteristics of this medicine First Long Gu must be very heavy In the theory of Chinese medicine, the mass of a medicine is closely related to its functions We will talk about that later Second Through continuous withering over the past hundreds or thousands of years it became more and more moderate in nature That is to say, it is neutral We name that "neutral property neither heat nor cold Form that sense it can be widely applied From the sense of the taste Long Gu is sweet and a little astringent We all know that many people like sweet food and we all believe that sweet food do good to our health As an old says goes Sweetness is a kind of tonic What does it tonify So far we know that Dragon bones do good to our health in two ways For one thing, it can tranquilize our mind Or to say it can calm us down mentally In other words, Dragon bones can be used to treat restlessness The restlessness can be mild or severe In mild conditions, patients may experience palpitations timidity and poor sleep In severe conditions, patients may present with mania and dementia In traditional Chinese medicine, there is a description for such state "sing on a highland and run naked" That is to say, you climb to somewhere high and sing loudly and then take off all the clothes to run That is a typical symptom of mania For this sympton, Dragon bone can be used for all kinds of restlessness Why? Because it is very heavy can can tranquilize the mind directly Therefore it can be used for severe restlessnesses For another Dragon bone is neutral and tastes sweet which means it is a tonic for human body that's why it can nourish heart and tranquilize mind In other words You don't need to remember the detailed usages of dragon bone but you can remember one thing Dragon bone as a Chinese medicine can be used for all kinds of restlessnesses Apart from that on the other hand this medicine can soften the liver As mentioned before, dragon bone are very heavy You all know that heavy things must sink into the water Because it has heavy mass Even if those floating things can be drawn down to the water by it The heavy mass can conquer ascending symptoms What symptoms ascend Restlessness, red face and eyes and dizziness can be diagnosed as liver fire "Wow, you have hyperactivity of liver fire!" We have another slang Hyperactivity of liver yang Hyperactivity of liver fire or liver yang needs to be down-regulated This treatment is called softening the liver To soften the liver is similar to lower blood pressure As for symptoms of high blood pressure Dragon bone is helpful Dragon bone works more than that when they are prepared We call it calcined dragon bone Used externally, it can treat skin problems especially eczema and sores that are difficult to heal grounded powder of calcined dragon bone can be spread on the ulcerative surface it helps the wound heal That's what we say in Chinese medical terms "to heal the would and regenerate fresh tissue" So far, we have gained some knowledge about the relationship between "Jia Gu Wen", the ancient Chinese character and Dragon bone, the Chinese medicine Also, we have introduced the characteristics and functions of Dragon bone Through these example we may find out that Chinese character is closely related to Chinese medicine Further more The ancient Chinese philosophy is rich in content Some scholar once remarked that Chinese medicine itself is a live philosophy He believes that Chinese medicine is philosophy Because philosophical ideas are contained in theoretical system principles of treatment and combination of Chinese herbs The philosophy of Chinese medicine will be mentioned in the second unit in which I will focus on the action mechanism of Chinese herbs So I won't detail it now Now we know that Chinese medicine is closely associated with philosophy Apart from philosophy diet is also related to Chinese medicine Let me give you a very simple example The theoretical system was established by Shen Nong, the Emperor of the Five Grains He was thought to be the originator of ancient Chinese agriculture In his mind Chinese herbs and food have the same source He is also the pioneer of 'Chinese herbs and food share the same source' Many Chinese food are both medicine and food The ways to cook the food and their functions all show that Chinese medicine and food share the same source In this subject there will be a special unit to discuss that So we'll talk about that later Above all, regarding the characteristics of Chinese medicine we mentioned three relationships Chinese characters and Chinese herbs, philosophy and Chinese herbs and food and Chinese herbs The focus of this lecture is Chinese charaters and Chinese medicine We will continue to discuss other aspects1